permaculture advocate in Zimbabwe - too little/too much rain

Yesterday, before we went to bed I realized that one of the girls was isolating herself more and more. Before we went to bed, I asked what her problem was and she mentioned how she disliked dancing. I had not picked this up and it surprised me. She did struggle with some moves, but it wasn't bad. I tried to make her see that we need to find a way of balancing life and in most cases the things that are nice to look at, take effort, even if it's for recreation. She naturally takes more time to blend in and even if she does eventually connect, she will still be having her guard up.
In the morning I heard the kids practicing and when I peeped, all of them were working on their dance routine. They even came to show us what they were working on. What made it a happy moment is that the other ones seem to be finding a way to make dance more exciting to the little one as well as the one who had said she dislikes dancing. At least they now have some time of their own that they will not be on phones and also they are beginning to share a common activity which they can do together, which is helping them to create room to be more open with each other.

We had an amazing Easter, we celebrated our birthday as well as Tariro's. Now we are back to books and things are flowing. The little ones do not have much activity and one of them constantly disturbs me when I am teaching the older ones. Today I made the younger ones plant a baobab tree and they were so excited to do it and it gave me some time without interruptions during class. I discovered that one of the kids who is doing A-level biology is struggling, she actually was trying to push me away from her studies but once she let me in I noticed it was because she finds biology difficult. I also think biology is hard, but I  cannot say this to her and I now need to also help her with it. I have to read biology, something I would not have planned to do any time soon.

I went to the plot and the patch that has vegetables looks good, but the space that has weeds, is way too much. The sweet potatoes  have not been weeded. I wanted to see how far can be done at the plot without too much meddling and it's not enough to sustain the one family living at the plot. So I need to come up with a different way of handling things at the plot.

My trap drowned two rats and I  had forgotten all about it. I am really happy.

Today was my first big hurdle in class. We got to a topic in matrices, and it was difficult for one of the girls. No matter how I tried explaining the concept she was not getting it until it seemed like she had just developed an attitude or she just shut down and she started crying. I was not too happy either because I kept on saying one thing in so many different ways and it wasn't working. I felt like whatever was going on had nothing to do with maths. But we got to talk alone about why she was crying and it turns out it was because I had told her that I felt like she had developed an attitude towards what we were doing.

We talked and got to be on the same page and we are now understanding each other. I am glad to say she can multiply matrices and she still likes maths and me.

The girls found some old graduation hats in the house and they wore them singing a shona song "nhasi ndezvedu" which means "today it is our turn." This is all I want for them, daring to dream and putting an effort in seeing their dreams through. I don't even know if school will do anything for them, but this is what is being termed the most important thing in their lives for now. It would be good if, in any given situation they can believe they can make it.

I plan to find a person I can pay to clear weeds on a small section at the plot. This will help us to determine the speed that we need to work with if, we are to do tasks at the field that go beyond food for us to eat.

I had looked for someone and mai Kumbi was against this because she said she and her family will do this. This is the second time she has said this. In some sense it is good that she wants to be the one to do the jobs that need to be done within the plot, and
blocking external help, but the pace we are doing things at is too slow and we will circle one place if we are not careful. The guy I had looked for did not turn up and I know that by the time I go to the plot the patch I wanted to be cleared, will be cleared by mai Kumbi. I need to find a way to quicken our pace when we do jobs because the importance of this place to both us and mai Kumbi's family is clear to both families now. This is actually an opportunity for me, I need for us to build on responsibility and accountability.

I have always known that there is little space for introverts, because a person who is desired is one who is articulate, intellihent, works well under pressure,...e.t.c., but we are not the same. I discovered that the youngest one, whom I thought was an independent child is apparently very quiet at school, even in class and he has experienced bullying. He is different at home, because he was very eager to do his homework and he actually knows what he is doing. We do prayers every night before we sleep and he is shy to pray out loud, at some point he would come and whisper in my ear, but now he does not even say any word. After I heard about his quietness at school, I am opening my eyes to see how he is and prayer time came to mind and I think he is a little shy to speak in a group. If there is a way to help him be comfortable with being an introvert, yet at the same time make it comfortable for him to say things out when he has to, I will have to figure it out, so that he creates his own place in a group just the way he is.

I had a break through with the biology class. It was just difficult to have my cousin do her studies with me. It was an excuse after excuse and I can't say I was of much help. Yesterday when we were supposed to study, power came back and we both like some TV series called survivor and so we put off studying for this. And in the evening another excuse came. Last night we both acknowledged that we needed to fix our approach to how we were tackling our biology class. Today I am not the one who was pushing for us to study it was my cousin and it's like she turned on a certain switch. I want to believe it has a lot to do with how we were both accountable for our not so positive actions yesterday and the talk we had, which was not a finger pointing talk but rather a talk to make each other see that we had a task we needed to do.

It's been really cold and I have not had enough chances to wear my dresses as I had planned to do, but I am trying to match my clothes and still look good in warmer clothes the best way I can.

I had gotten an opportunity to take the kids to our local university for them to see for themselves what a university looks like, but the person who had made it possible canceled because he got busy. I hope I manage to have them see, and hopefully it will be good enough to give them some drive at school.

If I manage also I will have some girl who got married  early, whom if given a chance she would do things differently, so that they can see the responsibilities that come with the other side of what these little ones want to rush into.

I have been working on the keyhole garden, and I have been shifting the soil from one end of the garden and filling up the other side which has the tomato plants. I will be refilling this side again with organic matter from the grown banana plants as well as from the kitchen compost, with the kids around it filled up so fast. The worms in the bed are very big and they are so many.

My experience with waste management made me aware of our waste management system and how I need to be in charge of all of my waste no matter how insignificant it can seem. I had already started with composting of kitchen waste and we then decided to bury our dogs' waste, which we started putting in a hole we dug, and we would cover the waste with leaves as the hole fiilled up. We closed one hole for a year and the waste now looks like soil, so I used this at the base of the keyhole garden. I noticed as I was digging soil up from the keyhole bed, that the soil that was beneath the first layer of organic matter was too far from the shallow root level, and there were so many worms deep in the soil around the organic matter and into the base of the bed, (which surprised me because I had thought worms will be concentrated at the surface only). I have put the matured waste at the base before the organic matter and there is more than 30cm of soil above the organic matter to make sure that the matured waste which was mixed with leaves, though it looks harmless will be further processed by the worms without contaminating the plants we will grow. I do not see myself digging up this space within  the next 6 months. This way I know that both our kitchen waste and dog waste are not going to harm anyone at which ever level of our ecosystem, whether it is a level we are aware of or not. I now have to come up with a plan for our paper and plastic waste, which now forms the bulk of the waste we throw away to be collected. It is not much because we also are trying to control the things we by for use in our home. We probably will use this as fuel for boiling our water for bathing, to save on gas and electricity money.

The school holiday is almost over now and the kids have gone back to their homes to start preparing for school. I enjoyed every single moment with them.

I went to the plot today to see how things are. There is a space where we are growing onions and I had asked for the seedlings to be planted 10cm apart. The spacing done was 30cm and it does not make much sense to me because I repeated this gap measurement over and over again for fear of not being heard and understood. With the space we have, 30cm spacing will not give us much when we sell the onions, and I get that it is possible to not hear clearly but  the onion quantity is too small for making any profit and it's something I would have expected mai Kumbi to have at least asked about if we are truly focusing on profitability now, this is from the last talk we had.

My main concern is how when it's things we are growing together, there is always an excuse or a mistake in how things are done or why things do not work out. But everything she grows for her family consumption which has nothing to do with me always grows well. I couldn't help to think of how she seems to be the only person benefiting in our arrangement, so I went to talk to her again on this issue. I  sensed a lot of genuineness in her when she was expressing how it was an honest mistake and it could be I am overreacting because things are getting harder and harder and I expect more from what we are working on. I think we are not accountable enough financially for things generally, from the talks I have with people from the diaspora. When people talk about how one has to truly earn their living, it's as if we do not earn our living,  it's like we are living off things that were set up in the past without actually adding much to grow our system. We have a space which if we figure out how to work on, we can earn a descent living, but I have no idea how to make things work. I have a dream to develop a regenerative homestead, but if I do not become profitable soon I don't see myself achieving this dream.

We are slowly getting successful in planting some crops organically, we have worked on our relationship a lot with the family at the plot. The plot is now a need for them in terms of what the space offers as well as the potential it has. I need to quickly make our arrangement profitable for my family too otherwise what we are doing is not sustainable.

So we had such a beautiful holiday with the kids and I was left with only two of them, the ones writing their ordinary level starting October. I felt like I had to work on their self belief, in them, actually passing and it worked, more on this in threads that follow. Today the two left, though one is coming back in a few days' time, she will be learning at home. The one whom I have the biggest eyes on because she has had it so rough left happy, but all of a sudden she stopped picking my calls as I was checking up on her during her journey. She usually has her uncle wait for her when she gets into the capital city and he then helps her to get into her second bus. Today he said he couldn't get into town and it's mainly because of his finances, and so I was working with her so that she could get someone who drives taxis in Harare, the capital city, to pick her up. The first number I gave to her was not getting through the time she tried it, when she sent me messages I could tell she was panicking but I tried to calm her down, because one thing I knew was we would make sure she safely gets into her second bus. All of sudden she stopped answering my calls and it's now in the evening and her aunt whom she stays with  says she is not home yet. When I checked with her uncle, he sent me messages with her talking about how, simply because she has no parents, she doesn't get things that she needs. I am beyond puzzled. Not knowing whether she is okay or not is nerve wrecking. I hope she is fine.

She is now home. I am so relieved, but at the same time there is a negative emotion because I feel like she is unfair to make people go through this.

She doesn't know that I know she was talking about how her needs are not met because she is orphaned, simply because her uncle from her father's side had not picked her up and also he needs about a week before he can buy her a mathematical set she needs. I  wonder if she will ever appreciate love and know that a parent is not just your biological parent and we will not always have what she wants at the exact time she requests for things, and it's normal even for biological parents.

My niece called me today, I think she sensed the coldness in my responses yesterday. I felt like it's upto her to choose to be an "orphan", or not. Orphan in the sense of not having guardians and not necessarily loosing biological parents only and it seemed she was choosing to be one and one cannot have it both ways, where I am a parent when I am doing what you want, but if we disagree or something like that,  I am not your parent. It's either you consider me a parent through thick and thin and we grow together or I am not your parent. So last night I felt like I did not need to put any of my energy towards her anymore.

When I saw a voice call from her, which we rarely do, we usually send texts via WhatsApp, my anger went away. She started talking about how she wants to buy me some shoes some day and she was trying to explain what happened on her journey. If only she knew she didn't need to explain anything because I was back to my senses. She said a bunch of things that do not make sense at all and I think she was lying to me. What happened along her way back to her home doesn't matter to me now because she got home safe. What matters to me is, if I am right  that she is lying to me, why would she see it fit to want to lie to me.  I think kids are very manipulative and somehow parents are not supposed to have feelings and they should take in a lot from their kids. I want to be honest with my niece and I will wait for a few days before I can tell her how I feel, and this is so I am a bit sure of what it is I feel. All I know is I still care for her the same. My next thread is about how good our holiday was.